


Emu's Day Off

by oneatatime



Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
Genre: Multi, Post Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:54:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25047211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneatatime/pseuds/oneatatime
Summary: Emu didn't need a cat.
Relationships: Houjou Emu/Karino Asuna|Poppy Pipopapo/Parad
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10
Collections: Toku Poly Ficathon 2020





	Emu's Day Off

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snakelesbians](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakelesbians/gifts).



Emu didn’t need a cat. 

He whiffled himself awake to the sight of Parad’s chin on his chest and the feel of gentle fingers in his hair. There was warmth all down him from where Parad was flopped against his side. Parad was gazing at him, apparently quite happy to watch him sleep. 

He seemed peaceful enough. At least, he wasn’t swiping at Emu’s face because Emu hadn’t made breakfast yet. Emu’d babysat a cat once – catsat? Or had he kittensitten? – for an intern friend, Mikoto-san, and he was the cutest, fluffiest small orange thing normally. (Uh, the cat, not the friend. Mikoto-san was muscly and bald.) But when the sun rose Ninjin-chan would park his behind on Emu’s face and start clawing at his hair. And if Emu ate cereal without putting a small bowl with milk that was okay for cats on the floor next to his chair, then he’d have a small ballistic ninja scaling him. 

Emu missed Ninjin-chan. 

“Have you had enough sleep? It’s been nine hours and ten minutes. Poppy thinks humans need about seven to nine hours usually, but more if they’re extra tired.” 

“And you worked too long yesterday!” Poppy’s voice from the kitchen. 

Emu yawned, and Parad grinned as he poked Emu’s cheek. 

“I think so, yeah. Good morning! Good morning, Poppy!”

“Good morning, Emu,” Parad said affectionately as he rolled smoothly off the bed and to his feet. 

It was almost annoying, how Parad didn’t seem to have any of the usual aches and pains of a human. Emu knew he was young, and in good shape, and if he had to fight he’d be able to do so. But being largely on his feet for eighteen hours yesterday meant he was sore. Everywhere. He groaned as he pulled himself to his feet, and groaned more softly as he tugged the pink and green blankets straight and then smoothed his pillow. 

Poppy chirped, “I made miso soup, and salmon, and rice, and pickled vegetables, and I found umeboshi at the back of your refrigerator!” 

Suddenly Emu was able to move faster. 

(It was part hunger, and part being utterly sure that whatever that thing at the back of his refrigerator used to be, it wasn’t umeboshi.) 

***

“I like it when you two come over,” he said through a mouthful of salmon. The quiet bleeps and bloops from Parad’s handheld were a nice accompaniment to Poppy’s humming, and the meal in general. She was working on a new song, he thought. He looked forward to hearing it when she was ready.

Parad pushed his handheld across the table to Poppy, who gave him a surprised headtilt, but then she started playing. She had her concentrating face on, all big eyes and teeth in her lower lip. She looked like that when she was studying for her paramedic licence, too. 

Emu stared hastily at his chopsticks, to not make a big deal out of the delight he could feel warming his insides at that. He knew they were friendly, but this was a pretty big deal. The sense of Parad he had in the back of his mind was all sunlight. 

Feeling their happiness was really nice, especially after his long, kind of horrible day yesterday. 

Parad uncurled to his feet and began taking dishes back to the kitchen. 

“We had to make sure that you’d wake up in time for your day off,” Poppy said. “We want to spend it with you!” 

“And we had to make sure you’d get home!”

“I was pretty tired,” Emu agreed. He had confused memories of stumbling into CR, then stumbling out again with his arms around two Bugsters and their arms around him. 

Poppy made a face at the game, then shot him what looked like a concerned face. “You don’t mind us staying the night?” 

“Of course not.” 

***

“How much sugar is in this?” Emu spluttered, grinning. 

It wasn’t bad, exactly! He liked a good sugar hit now and then, and he was enough of a doctor to know that indulging in junk food was okay once in a while. (Especially if you didn’t manage to eat anything for the eighteen hours of your shift yesterday and then fell into bed when you got home, whoops.) It was just that it had a picture of fruit slices on the side, and he had assumed that there’d be something nutritious in there as well. Not just _pure sugar._

Poppy wasn’t far away. He could hear her in the background now and then, exclaiming over this toy or that one at the novelty store at the edge of the food court. 

Parad took the paper cup back, eyes dancing, and took another long sip through the straw. He stepped aside deftly as a harried young mother with a pram and a headache, judging by the furrows in her forehead, pushed her way past. She murmured apologies but obviously had to get somewhere. There were too many tables. Very hard to move around. 

Oh. Emu saw the kid trotting towards the fountain, with no adults or older kids close by. Her two pigtails bobbed as she moved. Emu paused, ready to leap into action if necessary, but the mother caught up before the kid managed to throw herself head first into the fountain. 

Parad, who’d paused with him, took another long drink of his drink. 

“Are you worried that I’ll get a sugar high and go crazy? Bugsters don’t really do that, Emu.” 

There was a pink and yellow blur to the right of him. Emu had a confused impression of a determined fist raised. He only had time to squawk before it hit. 

“This way!” Poppy yelled, and somehow she had one of Parad’s hands, one of Emu’s hands, and they were racing across the food court in a flurry of pipopapos and giggles, and they didn’t hit even one table. How did she-?!

They skidded to a halt just inside the arcade. 

Okay, so Bugsters didn’t need sugar to go crazy. Got it. 

He managed to say her name as they stopped, and she giggled at him. He’d known they were going in the arcade eventually. He’d thought maybe later, after they’d finished looking in the stores, but Poppy was Poppy and Poppy was in charge… and he had no complaints. 

There was nothing quite as awesome as seeing her face all lit up like this, and he realized with an internal “…oh” that he wanted, really wanted, her to feel this way a lot more often. 

“DDR!” she called, pointing at the machine. “Come on!” 

Emu laughed. “You guys go first. I’ll be a minute.” 

She didn’t have anything in her hands, and she didn’t have a purse with her. 

***

They were dancing to One Love when he returned. A crowd had gathered around them, cheering and clapping. 

The two of them spun in unison, reaching out to hold hands through a particularly tricky crossover. They were showing off. You didn’t HAVE to do it that way. Something burst in his chest, a flower of warmth and happiness.

“Come on, all those Perfects will overload the system!” he said, and he handed them both a small bag. “Give someone else a turn.” 

They tilted their heads simultaneously. “Emu?” 

“Open them. Go on.” 

A Precure role play toy for Poppy. It was from the latest, Sweet Dance Precure. Some kind of device you attached to your wrist and used to transform. (He figured it wasn’t any sillier than the way any of them transformed into their Rider selves.) It sparkled, and it was pink, and he’d heard her gush over it to herself a few minutes earlier. 

The other bag held a vintage Mighty figure for Parad. One of the borked limited runs, so it had black and blue and pink on it, and tiny stripes. It wasn’t quite right. Wasn’t quite Parad. But it was rare, and it was something that mattered to both Parad and himself, and he knew from the way that Parad’s eyes softened that he _understood_. 

“You didn’t have to do this,” Poppy said happily. She had the brace on her wrist already and was turning it this way and that, admiring the colors. 

She reached up and kissed him on the cheek, bracing herself on his shoulder. 

He could feel his face flaming. “Ah, don’t worry about it!” 

Parad leaned down and kissed his other cheek. Because of the genuine feelings Emu didn’t need his link to understand, and also because Parad kind of enjoyed being half cat sometimes. Making mischief. 

***

Later that evening, Emu sat on the couch with Poppy cuddled in next to him, and Parad leaned against his legs on the floor, as they played Smash. 

It was perfect. 

“Ask me that question you asked earlier?” Emu murmured. 

“About the toilet paper?” 

Emu snorted. “No, about…”

Parad chimed in. “About not minding us staying here. I think. Emu?”

“Oh?” Poppy sounded very uncertain. She swallowed. “Did you mind us staying last night? We can leave now if you need some privacy?” 

“No! No, I’m so sorry. I wanted to be smooth. I wanted to say, you can stay every night. If you want to?” 

The game was abandoned on the screen, and that in itself was a comment on just how important this was to them. Poppy reached down and touched Parad’s shoulder, and he turned to look back at her, covering her hand with his. 

Then they both leapt at Emu, pressing kisses to his cheeks and forehead and neck until he was breathless with laughter. 

No, Emu didn’t need a cat. 

But he did need his two favorite Bugsters. Forever.


End file.
